A grain elevator in Barnsley was recently torn down at the end of August, marking the end of a nearly 100-year run in the now ghost town.
Manitoba Pool Elevators built the 40,000-bushel wooden grain elevator in Barnsley, on the CPR Carman subdivision in the RM of Dufferin, in 1928. The tiny community of Barnsley sits between Carman and Elm Creek.
Station agent W.O. Taylor named Barnsley after his hometown in England in the late 1880s. For many years, Barnsley was known as “End-of-Track,” the point where the Manitoba and Southwestern Colonization Railway ended south of Elm Creek. From 1882 to 1889, when the line was finally completed six miles further south to Carman, this was the point where new arrivals disembarked, mail arrived, and livestock, grain and other goods were shipped or received.
A post office opened at Barnsley in 1887 and continued until 1916, when rural delivery was introduced. Schoolchildren attended McDermott School, one mile west, or Tracy School, three miles northeast. Local folks started a Sunday School, but no church was built at this location.
The two grain elevators were built in 1928 and dominated the landscape at Barnsley. When the rail line bypassed Bradburn in 1929, a store was moved to the town, and a pool hall was added. This remained a social centre of the community until the 1960s.
Today, all that’s left of Barnsley is the now-fallen grain elevator and just three houses. Aside from that, it’s now a ghost town.
John Peckover, the deputy reeve of the RM of Dufferin, has owned the elevator with his brothers since 1990. He said its condition had deteriorated in recent years, prompting the demolition. The grain elevator also hadn’t been in use since 1998.
“We had gotten a demolition permit, so we had it knocked down a few weeks ago,” said John Peckover. “It was leaning over and deteriorating badly, but we have kept the old and smaller grain elevator beside it, and it is still standing.”
